Jerusalem Inn by Martha Grimes Page B

about her cheek, the comb had come loose in the back. Looking into the firelight, she said, “Ah, the pore girl.”
    â€œHe wanted his son Frederick out of harm’s way.”
    She shook her head wearily. “I’m being that honest with you. I don’t know.”
    It might not have been enough for Jury, but he knew it was quite enough for Maureen Littleton. He got up. Wiggins did so too, reluctantly. Besides looking at Maureen, he had been toasting his feet and forgotten his pad and pen. “Thanks, Maureen. You’ve helped a great deal. We can see ourselves out.”
    Immediately, the hair, the white collar, and the set of the mouth got tucked properly in place. The uniform was straightened and a Certainly not, sir, although unspoken, hung in the air.
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    It was a beautiful house, the shadows in the dimly lit hall hanging like the dark velvet draperies at the high windows in the drawing room they passed before reaching the front door. There was a fire ablaze in there too, and Jury saw the small head of a dachshund rise, its nose testing the air for unfamiliar smells.
    â€œIt’s hers,” said Maureen. They walked into the room, and the little dog clambered up heavily, as if its weight or its sorrow were too much for its legs. It had been lying on a scrap of rug by the fire and in front of a leather wing chair. “It won’t leave that place. I try taking it down to my parlor to get it to lie there by the fire. But as soon as I’m not watching, it’ll just struggle up the stairs and come back. She always sat hereafter dinner. My, but she did set store by that old dog.” Maureen looked at the dachshund helplessly. “He’s nearly blind. He’s going to die soon.” She said it with the certainty of a doctor pronouncing sentence.
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    They stood on the front stoop in the dark, Maureen with her arms wrapped around her uncloaked arms, Wiggins telling her to get back inside before she caught her death, Jury looking off across the street at the blank frontage of the Church of Scotland. It was cream-washed and in the night seemed sickly in its moonlit square. He almost resented its lack of ornament. No embroidery, no stenciling of stained glass, just this sickroom pallor. Surely, he thought, with perverse annoyance, the God of the Scots could do better than that. Presbyterians, he thought, and then wondered with some shame if he were right. Were all Scots Presbyterians? Oughtn’t he to know? He was furious with himself because he thought any police Superintendent ought at least to know that. He sure as hell didn’t know anything else that was coming in very useful. It was a point that he felt he had to settle right now and Wiggins knew all that sort of stuff. “Wiggins!”
    Sergeant Wiggins turned, startled, from Maureen, with whom he had (Jury had heard their conversation filtered through his own anger) been discussing Christmas dinners. “Sir?”
    â€œNothing.”
    Wiggins resumed his talk with Maureen. “Well, of course, we police never know. But if I’m here Christmas . . . it’d be nice. I’m not a fancy eater, I should tell you. . . . ”
    Jury wondered who was inviting whom to a meal, and he smiled a little, his annoyance with God somewhat assuaged.
    â€œÂ . . . plaice and chips, that’s the ticket with me,” continued Wiggins. “I know it sounds awful dull, but —”
    â€œAnd mushy peas,” said Maureen, brightly.
    Jury still kept his eye on the church, their debate over therelative merits of whole versus mushy peas again falling away like grace. Just one lousy stained-glass window, is that too much? Do You have to take it all away? How do You expect people to believe in that pale, sick-looking blank front? Before he realized he was saying it, and still with his back to them, he said, “She was